Lifestyle Choice
by bluemoongirl
Summary: 1976: Mick's investigation into a freshie's death at one of his best friend's parties, and Josef's surprising reaction to it, leads him to question how he lives. Before Beth entered his life, how did Mick relate to humans? Let me know what you think!
1. Chapter 1

**Lifestyle Choice**

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Moonlight or any of the characters appearing in this story. If I did, this would be a TV script and you could watch it.

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"Hey, man, welcome to the party." Josef is sitting on a smart, leather couch, a cute blonde perched on his lap. He smirks at me, "Thought you weren't going to show for a while there."

"And miss out on all the free booze? Not a chance."

"Alright, but you should know by now, I save the booze for my special guests." he says, wrapping his fingers around the girl's slender arm, which she raises in a lazy toast to me before taking a swig of the champagne that probably costs more than I earn in six months.

"Still, it being your birthday and all, I thought I should make an appearance. Not that I've got you anything to mark the occasion."

"You know what, I'll live. Anything from you wouldn't have been any good anyway." He looks me up and down critically. "At least you made an effort with the outfit." he remarks with heavy sarcasm. I realise I'm wearing the same black shirt and dark jeans as yesterday at poker night. To hell with it, it's been a rough day.

"Thanks. I'm so glad we're friends." Taking a look round, I can tell that there are about a hundred people at the party, hosted with typical subtlety in Josef's own beachfront mansion, a glass temple to ostentatious wealth. About a third of the attendees are vampires, the rest are not. I wonder how many of them know who, and what, they're partying with. Most of them, probably. 

"You want a proper drink?" Josef offers. "You look like you need it. Still living off the morgue stuff?" He grimaces at the thought. 

I could do with a drink. I'm feeling tired, having spent far too much time outside during the day following around a guy suspected of cheating. He hasn't been cheating, I couldn't smell anyone else on him when I "accidentally" bumped into him on the street earlier, but that won't do as a final report back to his girl. So I'll have to spend the next few days sneaking around taking photos to prove it using more conventional means. This means that I'll be visiting the grocery store and listening in on life insurance sales pitches a _lot_ more than I usually do in the near future. "Yeah, please." I tell Josef.

"I've got just the girl for you," he grins, "She's called Jessica, she's delectable." The blonde pouts in jealously, and Josef pulls her down a little and brushes his blunted teeth across her collarbone in reassurance. She giggles. "Where is Jessica, anyway?" he mutters, still staring at her neck.

Another vampire answers him, having heard his words from across the room: "She was here a while ago, must be upstairs."

"Too bad for Mick, then," Josef says distractedly. He turns away from the girl's neck and beckons over another of his freshies. "Mick, meet Zara." 

She comes over to face me and drapes an arm around my shoulders, a gesture that gives me a choice between her throat and her wrist. Her thick, dark hair brushes against me as she leans in, inhaling as if she was the one about to drink. I take her wrist and pull it to my mouth, so her arm is encircling me, and she tenses in expectation. I am disgusted by my own predatory feelings, but I know I'll do it. I need to do it. Josef smiles widely, baring his teeth as they lengthen into points, "To my twenty fifth birthday – as ever." and he bites down. I do the same, and the party music is replaced by the primal thudding of a heartbeat.

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It's about an hour later and I'm sitting on a couch in the corner. Zara is leaning against me, drowsy as a result of blood loss. The two puncture wounds on her wrist are neat and small. They'll heal easily, and won't have caused her any significant pain – it's a vampire trick I made sure I learned very early on. Around the room are many other freshies in a similar state, except no one is watching them. Why would anyone? They'll be fine. I know that. And yet I won't leave Zara. She murmurs something, half asleep, and her head falls down onto my chest. I put my arm around her instinctively, as if to protect her or keep her warm, and a small, contented smile steals onto her lips. For a moment, it's as if I can see the two of us from a third perspective, and I look like her dutiful man, taking care of her after a long night out. The reality this appearance covers up makes me shudder. I can still taste her blood in my mouth.

Josef saunters over, a smirk on his face, "My, my, this does look friendly. Although I hadn't planned for a slumber party. Should I go and get some marshmallows?"

I get up as quickly as I can without waking Zara. I don't even know why I'm embarrassed. Maybe it's because I spent the whole evening with one freshie, making me look like a pretty pathetic vampire; or perhaps it's because by feeding from her at all, I've proved myself once again to be a terrible human being. I know Josef thinks it's the first option. I feel that it's the latter. "You're party sucks, Josef." I tell him sarcastically. I consider my words for a moment: "Urgh, pun not intended."

"Yeah, I know," Josef agrees matter-of-factly. "It's a slow crowd. I'd hoped Lola might turn up, or at least Coraline. I seem to have finally proved: money can't buy you love." The second name I know, and it obviously brings a pained expression to my face. "Yeah, yeah, you and Coraline are currently in a hate patch of your whole love-hate thing, but you can't deny she's good at parties. Unlike you. You should break up with her, you know, she's crazy."

"Thanks, as ever, for the sensitive and insightful marital advice, Josef." Coraline: my sire, or vampire-mom; and also my sometime-wife. This vampire thing, as you may be picking up, is pretty twisted even before you get your first taste of the red stuff. I don't want to even think about her right now, and silently thank the stars she's a no-show tonight.

It's at this point that a scream rips through the house.

The scream belongs to a woman, and came from upstairs. I find myself racing up the wide stone staircase, just behind Josef, to see what's happening. As we come to the landing, a door flies open and the blonde who was with Josef earlier runs out in distress. Clearly, she is the one who screamed, but right now she seems fine. Humans with significant injuries can't move or make noise like that, which means my priority is what caused her flight. Apparently, Josef is with me on this, as he bursts into the room before the door has a chance to shut, with me following closely behind.

The first thing to hit me is the intoxicating scent of very fresh blood. A _lot_ of blood. Blood from a stunning woman in a silky green cocktail dress, sprawled on her back across a bed. Her eyes are wide open in fear, and her lips are just parted as if she is about to gasp in shock, but she won't because she is dead. Her throat is all but gone. Looking at her with a still, blank face, Josef says one word: "Jessica". 

And then we both notice that there's someone else in the room. A vampire, I'm guessing a few decades older than me from his scent, but it's difficult to tell right now. Human blood is pretty overpowering. He's wearing modern clothing – leather cowboy boots with a slight heel, flared black jeans, a purple open-necked shirt with a wide pointed collar, the wings of which reach almost to his wide shoulders – what any self-respecting fashion-conscious guy is wearing at the moment in 1976's LA. But his face is that of a monster: his eyes are filmed over with silver, like those of a corpse , except made more grotesque by the obvious spark of life in them; and his mouth is full of sharp teeth, and blood, which is dripping over his lips and down his chin. He turns towards Josef, open palms spread down at his sides in a submissive shrug, with a guilty look. It's not the look of guilt a murderer wears, but that of someone caught by the buffet at a party before it's been declared open. "Hey, man, sorry," he explains sheepishly, "Things got a bit out of control. I guess I should call the Cleaner – obviously at my expen…"

Almost too quick for even me too see, Josef whips a blade out from it's hiding place in a picture frame, and slices the other vampire's head off with a vicious backhand. The head falls at his feet with a dull thud. Sidestepping it as it rolls Josef spits in restrained fury, "Apology not accepted, man."

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**Author's note**: Hope you enjoyed my first attempt at something with a significant plot rather than just a short character exploration one-shot. Thanks for reading. Reviews encourage me to write more and update quicker! hint, hint 


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** I still don't own Moonlight or any of its characters. Alas.

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Ok, Josef has just chopped a guy's head off. It's lying on the floor with a surprised expression on its face in a pool of its own blood, except that blood isn't its own blood – it's all originally from the other body, the woman on the bed. It's taking me a while to process everything, I don't mind saying. Josef seems alright, though. He's standing still, having instantly regained his cool, looking at the dead woman. He drops the blade. It's so sharp, the point sticks in the wooden floor and it stays upright, swaying slightly in abandonment as Josef turns on his heel and strides out of the room. I follow him, for want of anything better to do.

It's barely ten minutes later, but the place is empty. Once Josef declared the party to be over, it cleared pretty damn fast. Josef is an important guy in our local "community", so people do what he says. Plus, most of the guests of the more bloodthirsty persuasion will have heard very clearly what has just happened. No one wants to stick around in those circumstances. So that leaves me and Josef. We're standing on the terrace, looking out across the dark Pacific Ocean. Josef hasn't said anything since his announcement and a to-the-point call to the Cleaner, requesting a disposal – one human, one vampire. The Cleaner doesn't ask questions. I on the other hand, am compelled to. Hey, it's my job.

"You want to explain what just happened in there?"

My best friend's eyes don't leave the starry horizon as he answers in a monotone: "He killed her in my house. Can't stand for that; it doesn't look good."

It's true, but it doesn't take a vampire or a PI to tell that this isn't the real motive. It's hard to really piss Josef off, unless you take his money, and even then, he doesn't get his own hands dirty with actual violence. That, as far as he's concerned, is something you can use money to pay other people to do for you. Besides, if appearances are at stake, it looks weird to kill another vampire for killing a human. To most vampires, that would be like a human shooting down a guy who ran over her cat – it's fair enough to get upset but now she looks like a whack-job. I have never considered myself one of "most vampires" – in my eyes, Josef's actions tonight just mean one less monster walking around hurting people. Now, it seems Josef sees things this way too. I keep staring at him, waiting for him to say something else. This could take a while. Still, it's an amazing night. The dark blue sky is cloudless, but the perpetual layer of pollution over the city disperses the light from the blazing stars so that it spreads out in shining halos, and even here, to more sensitive eyes, enough are visible to illuminate the sky and the white crests of the waves as they break on the coastline. I've often wondered why the vampires of means that I've met, like Coraline and Josef, choose to live in houses with so much glass, exposing the interior to the harsh Californian sun. Now I can see: it's not to let in the daylight, it's to let in the starlight, the moonlight, the night itself. But I can't wait forever (a lie – I could) and I eventually ask Josef, "So, who was he?"

He turns around to face me, leaning nonchalantly back against a wall. "I didn't know him too well. Name's Rob. Irish, originally I think, or Scottish. Possibly Welsh… He was a cop in New York when he was turned about a hundred and fifty years ago. He came out here…"

"Yeah, yeah. I'll tell his biographer. This is all very interesting, Josef, but why did you just decapitate him?" I interrupt. 

"I told you. He killed Jessica."

"Is that it?"

A look of anger flashes across his face again, and I almost take a step back. Almost. "What do you mean, "Is that it?"! He killed her."

It's a surprise to have my theory of Josef's motives – his life for hers, an eye for an eye – confirmed. Josef has forgotten to mention the appearance of killings in his own house this time, meaning the only other motive is that he cared about the woman, Jessica. I didn't know he thought like this. It's times like this when I realise why he's my closest friend in what passes for my life. "So you and Jessica were close?"

"What? No. I only met her tonight."

Ok, this revelation effectively derails my train of thought. "You only just met her and you are already prepared to kill for her? I thought you knew her. You told me she was delectable."

"I could tell that just by looking at her." he says, looking at me as if I'm a brand new kind of stupid, but then his expression suddenly becomes unfocused, and he looks wistfully out to sea again. He goes silent again, before saying quietly, "You know, Mick, she probably _is_ the age I pretend to be. Can you imagine only having that much time to see the world?" To me, that's just under half of the age I am now, five years less than the length of time I spent as a human, and four years over the length of time I've been a vampire. I can imagine stretches of time like this. I can't imagine how short a quarter of a century seems to Josef, who has lived through over three and a half centuries already. For someone who seems so up-do-date and modern, Josef has a better grasp on forever than even most vampires. And yet the extinguishing of a fleeting human life before it's already short time has struck him as a tragedy demanding of vengeance bloody enough to be worthy of the plays written in his own distant youth. "I want you to look into her death, Mick. I want to know how she came to be here and how she ended up being killed…" He pauses, frowning in confusion, and what looks like sorrow, "How did she end up killed? She was a freshie. You don't kill freshies…"

"I hate to say it, Josef, but the star witness is in two pieces upstairs."

"So, you're an investigator. Just do your homework and work around it."

I like to think I'd do anything for a friend, and since it seems that I've just discovered a whole new side to one of the very few I've got, I think the rest of my cases are going to have to take the back seat for a while.

**Author's note: **Thanks for reading, and especially for reviewing. Hope you're enjoying this. All feedback welcome, particularly on the writing style and characterisations, since they're what makes or breaks this kind of thing in my opinion. Oh, and apologies if it sounds a bit Brit occasionally. It's a little inevitable, but I try to avoid it. Next chapter, the investigation begins!


	3. Chapter 3

Just because someone's dead, it doesn't mean they can't tell you things

**Disclaimer:** Moonlight remains someone else's intellectual property. I wish they'd hurry up and put something new on our screens. In the meanwhile…

Just because someone's dead, it doesn't mean they can't tell you things. Look at me, for instance. So despite Josef's dismissive suggestion that I "work around" the fact that he decapitated the one guy that could probably give us a pretty good clue about why Jessica was killed, I'm going to do a little digging on the late, but not so lamented Rob. A full name would be a start.

I'm driving over to Rob's last known address now, the morning after the night before, and hoping that the Cleaner hasn't already gone for one of her more usual ways of disposing of vampire bodies – mysterious but devastating house fires, that curiously leave no remains. Or at least, I'm hoping to get there before she drops the match. Pulling up in the drive, it looks like I'm in luck. 

The place is in a middle-of-the-road suburb – no gang fights in the street here, but no groomed and polished showbiz types either. Just well-manicured lawns with the odd plastic ornament in front of small, pastel-shaded houses. It's a strange place for one of us to live, given that in these places, people generally know what their neighbours are up to, but then again, no one suspects their neighbour of being a blood-sucking creature of the night. Even if they see something odd, they overlook it. 

Luckily for my purposes, a tree in the drive blocks the view of my car from the road. I don't really want people to see I'm here, especially since the place is likely to become a fireball in the near future. Coming to the door, I take out my handy lock-picking set and select something appropriate. The lock gives way easily, with only two tumblers to crack. I guess Rob realised that the only people who'd be a threat to him wouldn't bother with locks and doors so much, not when they could smash through the wall to get at him. I don't want to make a scene though.

Stepping inside, the darkness of the lounge is a relief to my eyes, and I take off my shades to have a look round, shutting the door behind me. _What are you looking for, Mick?_ The place has that unnaturally clean, tidy appearance that most of our homes have. No one eats late-night takeaway pizza in here and forgets to throw out the box, no one falls asleep on the couch watching TV, there is no dog to leave hair on the couch. From the junk mail on the floor, Rob's name is revealed to be McDonal, although that doesn't reveal much about his real identity. He's probably changed it, possibly more than once. Josef is my friend's original name; he's been around so long it doesn't matter, although when I first met him he was Charles. Wonder what I'll change my name to when I have to. I'm going to have to keep Mick. _Mick St John, Private Investigator_ – it rolls off the tongue well. Too bad it'll have to go at some point.

Seems Josef was right about Rob's life, pre-vampire: on the wall there is an old NYPD badge in a glass wall case. If he ever had unaware visitors here, he probably passed it off as his pa's. I'm a little surprised to see a personal memento of Rob's former life displayed so prominently, with pride. Vampires often keep or collect stuff from their past – Josef has a record collection covering the past three hundred and fifty odd years that would be of immense interest to a musical historian, and Coraline has a collection of old children's toys – but they generally don't keep anything directly connected with their human selves, or at least they don't show them off. It's seen as false nostalgia, as well as a security risk. I don't keep anything like that because I don't want to be reminded of what I've lost, but this badge, tarnished by use and since cleaned up and polished before being put on show, makes me warm to Rob. And that brings to mind the only images I have of him. The proud, get-the-job-done cop jars violently with the bloodied monster shrugging apologetically in front of Josef last night. 

Moving through into the kitchen, which is again spotless, I see Rob's refrigerator, one of those industrial sized ones, horizontal rather than upright. Taking a look inside, it's empty. The large amount of money I shelled out to get my own air-conditioned unit made by, let's say _understanding,_ professionals seems so worth it now. I come up against another locked door. Picking its lock and opening it, it turns out to be the back door, as daylight streams in. _Ow_. The door creaks too, and now I look just like a B-movie vampire, cringing from the sun. Shame that at this moment, Rob's elderly neighbour and her cat happen to be sitting in a wicker chair on her porch, both looking right at me. 

I resist the strong desire to put my shades on and step out into the light, smiling at her. "Hi there, seen Rob lately?" I ask casually. 

"Why, not since last week," she answers, bewilderment at my direct question briefly overcoming her suspicion at seeing a strange guy emerge into her neighbour's back yard. "Who are you?"

"Ah, gee, I was hoping I'd catch him." I'm trying to quickly think of a plausible explanation for my presence. Damn, I said "gee" – no one's said that in a couple of decades. The pressure is getting to me because I didn't want to get seen, I don't want to and can't intimidate her without raising suspicions (unless I just kill her, but I rule that option out in ninety nine point nine percent of cases), plus I can see and smell the rising fear of her cat radiating towards me. It won't be long before even she picks up on it. A lie comes mercifully into my head: "I'm his brother and I've got some news for him – I'm getting married. She's called…" - a brief moment of hesitation a vampire would have noticed but luckily not her – "Carol. I was in town and thought I'd surprise him, celebrate over a beer." _Stop giving out details – it sounds ridiculous_ I mentally yell at myself.

She, thank God, seems to be convinced. "How lovely, my congratulations. I'm afraid he's not in. He's probably working. He's normally on the night shift at the car lot, but I guess he's got more sociable hours today. Just your bad luck."

"Tell me about it. Thanks for your help. I'll try and come round later." I let myself back into the house just as the cat begins hissing. She presumes it's smelt another neighbour's dog. I lean back on the door. Ok, that was sloppy, and complicates matters a lot. Still, Rob seems pretty ordinary, for a vampire. There's nothing here to indicate why he'd rip the throat out of a willing freshie in a house belonging to the most powerful, rich and influential vampire on the west coast. Hell, possibly the country. Putting on the shades, I get out of there as quickly as I can. That's really pretty quick.

As soon as I get home, I call the Cleaner. "Can I suggest a less dramatic disappearance for Rob?" I ask her.

"Mick, always a pleasure. I don't know what you're talking about."

"Fine, but I was seen at his house earlier, and I don't want the police turning up and asking what I was doing there when the place strangely blows up tonight."

"Who saw you?"

There's no way I'm telling her that. "A passing motorist, but I think he saw my face." I pause, then add pre-emptively, "No, I didn't catch the auto's registration."

"Ok, no problem. Rob can just quietly disappear." Under her smooth professionalism, I can almost sense her disappointment. But a disappearance will be easy. No one will notice for a few weeks anyway, and even then no one will put up a fuss. If he's anything like most of us, Rob won't have anyone that cares enough to alert the human authorities. His name will just go into a police to-do list, and he'll never be found. "What were you doing there?"

"Client confidentiality, sorry. You of all people should understand that." She knows what I was doing there. What Josef did yesterday will have got all around the country among us by now. I'll get nothing more from her: "Bye." I put the phone down and put my feet up on the desk. Rob's place has been a let down, with precisely zilch new leads to follow. I won't tell Josef that though. But I will have to deal with him tomorrow when I start my investigation into yesterday's other victim. Jessica.

**Author's note:**Again, thanks for reading and reviewing – it makes my day when someone says this isn't complete rubbish! 


	4. Chapter 4

Josef is yelling down the phone when I step into his office in a downtown high-rise

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Moonlight or any of its characters. I'm just amusing myself with them until the real thing returns.

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Josef is yelling down the phone when I step into his office in a downtown high-rise. "I told you to sell! SELL! There's no future in that market!"

I can hear the other guy's voice through the phone. He sounds harassed, like a persistent man who's been argued down: "I just think if we hang in there for a while… If we just focus on the long term…"

"I'm not interested in the long term!" Josef shouts. He pauses, considering the irony of those words coming from the mouth of someone who was by nature interested in the _very_ long term. He doesn't let any doubt or hesitation enter his voice though, and continues: "So, to conclude this highly stimulating discussion, James, you sell everything we have in there by tomorrow or I'm going to fly over there and garrotte you with the Rolex you'll be getting as a forced early retirement gift, me to you."

"Ok, ok, sell. Ok."

Josef's voice changes as if someone's flicked a switch, becoming totally, earnestly friendly and relaxed. "Isn't it your anniversary next week?"

James's voice follows Josef's: "Yep, on Thursday. I'm meeting her at the city library, then dinner."

"I can't believe you first met the love of your life at the library. Were you lost?"

"Haha. I need something to distract me from all the work you give me. It used to be Hemingway, now it's her."

"Make sure you buy her something nice. Listen, have a great night, and my congratulations."

"Thanks, will do."

Josef puts the phone down and turns to me as if he'd just noticed me. "Mick, how's life?"

"Oh, you know, working. The pay is terrible, but at least it gives me an opportunity to lie to old women about being a dead murderer's brother…"

He becomes serious again, his expression changing with that eerie speed once again. "You looked into Rob?"

"Yeah, of course, but there wasn't much. He was pretty ordinary, living quietly, not seen but not noticed or missed by the neighbours. Nothing pointing to a capacity to suddenly go feral like that."

Josef is quiet, tapping his fingers against a desk, before muttering, "You don't get to his age if you make a habit of killing like that."

"Right, so there must have been something that triggered his reaction the other night."

"Any ideas?"

"I was going to ask you the same thing," I say, frowning. "Did you invite him?"

"Yes. I invited him." he says, as if it's a confession. "I met him a couple of times, with a few of the guys. He seemed ordinary."

"We're not getting anywhere here," I say, hand across my temples in an attempt to organize my thoughts, "I came over here to ask about Jessica. I need to know everything you know about her."

"It's really not much," Josef mutters with a concentrated look. He sits down and gazes despondently at the smooth wooden surface in front of him and the dim reflection of his image within it. "I guess she'll be gone by now." I don't want to think about how exactly the Cleaner dealt with her body. It's hard to pass off too many deaths as animal attacks in LA, so something else is called for in a disposal. Maybe she's just disappeared, like Rob, but people will be looking for her. They are the people I need to talk to.

"Do you even know her full name?" I ask.

"No."

"How about the name of the girl you were with? The one who ran out the room?" Josef writes a name out on a piece of his company notepaper and slides it across to me, and I pocket it. He is looking blankly out of the window.

"Look, Josef, I'm going to do all I can here to find out why she died, but the fact is, you may have to accept that she was just unlucky, that she just happened to be there when that monster snapped, and that's it."

Josef turns and smiles grimly at me. "Then at least that way I dealt with it." he says. "See you later, Mick."

"Yeah, later." I reply as I walk out, wondering if Josef has a secret weapon stashed in every room, and under which exact circumstances he's prepared to use them against his own kind to defend, or avenge, humans. If I was a vampire who went in for that kind of thing, I'd probably be as paranoid around him as he is around almost everybody. As it is, I'd probably join him.

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Later the same day, and I'm at the blonde's apartment. It turns out her name's Louise Knappel. Her place is on the first floor, and I reluctantly jog up the building's external stairs to get to the door. I'd rather just jump up – hey, I might hate what I am, but a guy's got to have something to get out the cooler in the morning for - but it would probably get noticed here on a reasonably busy street at midday. Damn, working on a case for a vampire about a killing by a vampire, you'd think I could work some better hours, but clearly not. I could really do with getting out of the sun right now. Knocking on the door, I can hear the person behind it's heartbeat rocket, but there's no answer. "Louise?" I call. No reply, just that frantic pulsing. "Louise? Are you ok?" Nothing. "I'm coming in Louise, ok?" I once again pick the lock, and push the door in gently. As it opens, I'm assaulted with her fear. It's so overpowering, I don't have enough time to move out of the way when she stabs wildly at me with a stake.

That said, I manage to move enough so that it just misses my heart. It's wedged pretty well between my ribs though, and I fall against the doorframe in shock. At the same time, Louise let's go of the stake, screams and runs into the apartment's back room. I hate making big entrances. They're bad form for a guy who makes his living sneaking around. I pull the stake out, prodding the wound to help it knit together, and start making my way a lot more carefully towards Louise's heartbeat. "Are you ok?" I ask again. _Says the guy who's just been stabbed_. I step into the backroom – a cramped kitchen – and see Louise huddled on the floor, clutching a string of garlic bulbs and wordlessly mouthing a prayer. I don't have words for the look in her eyes – it goes way beyond fear - but it makes me believe that what she thinks of me is totally justified. I can't look back at her, so I just back out of the room. "Ok, ok," I say quietly. "I'm not going to hurt you. I'm just going to go through here and sit down. I just need to talk to you." In the front room, I collapse on a chair, and wait.

There's fifteen minutes of agonising silence between the two of us before I hear her get to her feet and move slowly towards me. I decide not to let her know I can hear her every move, and don't turn to look at her until she steps into the room. She's still holding her garlic like a talisman. I won't let her know that it's useless – she needs to believe she's safe right now. _She is safe _I remind myself, then I silently thank the stars that she obviously doesn't know probably the most effective weapon humans have against vampires: a shotgun full of silver ammo. Get a barrel-full of that aimed at your head from nearby, and you don't get up again. Or the flamethrower, obviously… _Get focused, Mick_. The pain from the rapidly healing chest wound clears my head. "Hi," I say as soothingly as I can.

"I know what you are!" she says quietly but surprisingly firmly.

"Clearly…" I begin, but she cuts me off.

"I saw you at the party the other night! You're Josef's friend." The statements of the bitingly obvious are betraying her frayed nerves, and I'm glad she's only armed with a basic store-cupboard ingredient. A memory of the taste of bruschetta forces its way into my mind. I had it as a starter on a date with another blonde girl once, a long time ago. It had been a poor choice of starter, on reflection. At least it's a mistake I'll never make again. Louise snaps me back into the here and now: "I saw what one of you did to Jessica!"

Ok. She knew Jessica. Unfortunately, she also thinks I'm a monster. I need to change her mind about this, both for the sake of the investigation and for the state of what I'd like to think is my soul. "Did you see what Josef did to Jessica's murderer?" I ask.

"I didn't hang around!" she hisses back.

"Josef killed him." I opt not to fill her in on the details, given that she's still clinging to the garlic like it's a mace. "He got what he deserved." I add seriously. She looks at me, wondering if I'm lying, and I take the opportunity to ask a few questions. "How many times have you been to… something like the party the other night?"

"Lots of times," she answers, "going back four months, but I've only been… bitten…" she shudders, "for the past three."

The disgust on her face as she remembers is like another stake. Surely all freshies don't think like this, or why would they come back again and again? Could I feed on some essentially helpless human if they felt like this about it? Louise looks like she feels used, and damaged, and worse: she feels she "let" it happen by turning up at all. I try to mentally defend my use of freshies by reminding myself that Louise feels like this after seeing another freshie, another young woman, brutally killed by a vampire, but it sounds weak even in my head. Hiding these thoughts behind a smooth mask, I continue: "How did you meet Josef?"

"At something organized by one of his other friends. Josef wasn't the first of you I met. I met this other one in a club, he got me into all this." she says, touching a spot on her neck.

"Why didn't you get away from him as soon as you found out?" I genuinely want to know what her answer is. My introduction to this world was a little more abrupt, apparently. I don't know what I'd have done if Coraline had explained all before turning me. I'd like to think that I'd have run, but then again, it was still Coraline… One thing's for certain: I wouldn't have understood. No one can possibly understand without being bitten what it feels like, and no one can understand without being turned what _this_ feels like.

"Because he was nice, he was a good-looking guy; apart from the obvious, he seemed normal, caring. Like Josef, like you." she says accusingly.

_Ouch_. "So how did you know Jessica?"

I see her pupils dilate in fear as she relives her last memory of Jessica. "I only met her that night, before you turned up. I was talking to her when Josef came and found me. He introduced himself to her, and then we went off and left her. All I really know is that she was called Jessica Borrega, that's all…" She tails off.

"What were you talking about?" I prompt, making a mental note of the name.

"What does anyone talk about at parties?" she says in frustration. "I asked her what she was drinking – she wasn't drunk, either – whether she liked the music. She said she liked the place. You know, nothing."

"She said she liked Josef's place? You got the impression she's never been there before?" It's possible she could've been there before and not met Josef, given his extravagances, but if it was her first time there, this raises another possibility.

"I guess so," says Louise, thinking.

"Was she with anyone else? Did she come with anyone?"

"Not that I noticed. No, she was on her own when I met her. That's why I went over to talk to her. She was on her own when I left her as well, it must have been before she met that… that monster because I asked her if she'd got anyone interested and she laughed and said no. Then Josef came over and I left her, on her own…"

"You used those words?"

"I wouldn't have said 'Has a vampire bitten you yet?' would I?"

"Fair point. One final question: why did you go upstairs?"

"I was tired. Josef had moved on, I needed to lie down. I picked the wrong room, saw something that's going to be burned onto the inside of my eyelids for the rest of my life, ran here, then you showed up."

"I'm really sorry to ask, but what exactly did you see? Was she dead already?"

"I don't know! He was bent over her throat, there was blood everywhere. Her hand may have clenched – I can't be sure. I screamed and he looked up…" she stops, and I don't make her continue. That was pretty much where I came in, and I know what she saw.

"I'm sorry. I'll go now. Thanks for what you've told me. You've really helped."

"With what?"

I pause, surprised, "With my investigation into Jessica's death."

"What do you care?"

"Trust me, I care. So does Josef." She doesn't look like she believes me.

"It doesn't need much investigating, it's not like we don't know how she died. Or what killed her." The accusatory tone again. I don't want to leave with her not trusting me at all.

"Look, I don't know how I can convince you, but I'm not like that."

"I don't care what you want me to think. Stay the hell away from me, all of you."

_It's not like I'm here as the tribe's representative._ I decide to stick with saying something more reassuring. "Fine, you won't be bothered by me, or any of us," (I hate using that pronoun) "again. And by the way", I say whilst picking up a fallen clove of garlic as I walk out the door, "if you really want to do some damage, try silver." I pop the clove in my mouth, flash her a smile, and leave. She watches me go all the way, until I've driven around the corner of the block.

I figure it's safe to have given her the silver tip – it's not like she knows my name and she sure doesn't have a photo. And I'd do anything to feel more on her and Jessica's side than on Rob's. _Besides, it's not as if I've given her all our secrets _I think as I spit out the garlic into a trash can on the sidewalk. Now let's see if I can find someone who knew Jessica for more than five minutes.

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**Author's note:**Sorry for taking so long to update – have been away from the computer. And while I'm on the apologies, sorry for any formatting irregularities, the fanfic uploader and my word processor don't seem to be playing nicely together. Thanks, once again, for taking the time to read, and again, many thanks to the amazing reviewers. Your feedback is really useful.


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Moonlight. I'm just amusing myself with these characters until someone puts them back on the air where they belong.

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Another carefully negotiated call to the Cleaner later, and I'm armed with the knowledge that Jessica has disappeared, but that no one officially knows yet. This is awkward – if the police knew, I could use my contacts to get myself on the case, but I can't exactly turn up at the station and announce her to be missing to bring that situation about. Not if I don't want to be the number one suspect.

Avoiding the police makes just finding Jessica more difficult. In the end, I track her name down to a college library members list. She was an economics major at UCLA. Josef had guessed wrongly about her age. She was twenty one years old.

After finding this, it doesn't take long to find someone who knew her: her room mate, one Jennifer Feyson. So now I find myself in a run-down apartment block, waiting for her to answer the door I've just knocked on. I don't have to wait long – she pulls the door open quickly, keen to see someone there. It doesn't take a college education to know who she wants to see. I can detect the disappointment behind her smiling, slightly wary eyes when she sees me instead. At least there's no stake this time. "Hi!" I say, "Is Jess in?"

Jennifer's polite welcoming smile vanishes, leaving only a heightened state of alert mapped clearly on her face. "No, sorry," is her only reply.

I decide to plough on as if I hadn't noticed the sudden tension. "Ah, damn, she must be on her way to the café by now. Just thought I'd surprise her and turn up a little early. Oh well. I'll see if I can catch her…" I turn as if to leave, but I'm using all the skills I have, human and otherwise, to persuade Jennifer to call me back.

It works: "Wait, you're supposed to be meeting up with Jess? Today?"

I turn to face her, and feign confusion. "Yeah… why?"

There's a struggle beneath her expression as she considers what she should say. I'm glad I got my own story straight beforehand. She settles on a question that still gives nothing away: "Since when has that been the plan?"

"Er… we arranged to meet up in our last class together, so that was… Tuesday, I guess."

Her eyes narrow like she's remembering something. "Ah, would you be Paul?"

I take a risk: "Yeah, that would be me!"

"She's mentioned you a couple of times." She looks me up and down, with mild approval, but then adds, "You're older than I'd imagined."

I guess I do look a little old to be dating a college student. At least I don't look my real age. "Not sure what to say to that," I reply, smiling sheepishly. "In my defence, I don't act my age… hence college."

She grins, "Hey, don't take it as too much of an insult, you seem to be an improvement on the morons she's got involved with in the past." She pauses and looks at me again, before deciding to tell me. "Look, Paul, I haven't seen Jess in three days, since Wednesday."

"What, really? Has she gone home or something? Is she ok?"

"I wish I knew." She lets worry flood over her, and she almost leans back against the doorframe in exhaustion, before asking me, "You want some tea?"

_No, but it's an in. _"Sure," I say concernedly, and follow her in to the apartment. "Wednesday, you saw her last?" That was the night of Josef's party, not a big revelation, but if I can find out what Jennifer knew, it might help determine how and why exactly Jessica died that night.

Jennifer collapses at a small table in the cramped kitchen. "Yeah. I'm getting really scared for her. I mean, she's probably gone off on a trip somewhere, but you know, you can't help but think of the worst case scenarios…"

I take another guess: "Jess doesn't seem the type to take off without warning."

"Yeah, well, that's what's scary, isn't it?" She looks at me, standing in her clean but worn-out kitchen, her eyes flicking to the kettle after remembering the tea she offered.

"I'll make it," I say quickly. _You look like you need to sit down, and I don't need a cup of tea._

"Thanks, tea bags are in the jar on your left. Only fruit stuff at the moment, sorry."

"No problem."

The kettle boils and I pour her a cup of scented tea. I covertly pour myself a cup of hot water. If I do have to drink it, at least it'll go directly into my bloodstream, and contains nothing I can't physically process. On the other hand, it'll only dilute my blood and speed up the need to feed again. She accepts her tea gratefully, inhaling its steam to clear her head. "Jess got me into this stuff. I guess it has gone part of the way to curing my addiction to coffee."

I grin at her conspiratorially, "Hey, if they're going to set classes that early in the day, caffeine's a necessity." It's surprisingly good to be here, in this students' apartment, surrounded by heavy, second-hand textbooks, thread-bare and mis-matched but loved furniture, with schedules, revision notes and posters covering the walls, and pretending to be Jess's coffee-loving classmate. This is a life I never got to see. I was patching up soldiers in France when I was Jennifer's age. It's a shame that I only get to see this because Jessica is dead. The thought violently reminds me why I'm here. I've got to tread a fine line between looking convincingly like someone Jessica knew well enough to invite for coffee and therefore deserve her roommate's trust, and also getting the information I need. "I'm just going to say this now: can you remind me of your name? Jess told me, and I know it begins with a J because it's a bit like hers…" I trail off, and look suitably and amicably embarrassed.

She smiles. "It's Jennifer, or Jenny. Most people can't seem to handle more than one syllable though, and I end up as Jen."

"Like Jessica is Jess." I say, smiling back. She trusts me. I'm _good _at my job. "So, Jenny, do you think Jess is ok? Taking into account that she ditched my generous offer of a hot beverage and a baked confectionery of her choice." I hate being so flippant, but I'm not supposed to know anything, and I need to know Jenny's take on the situation.

"I really don't know," she sighs, looking exhausted again. "She told me she was going out on Wednesday, but no details on where. I didn't think anything of it. I'm not her mom." She pauses again, and worry creases her face into lines that will in a few years become permanent. "It's just really unlike her to just go away and not say anything." Her voice starts to break, but before she cries, she gets up and goes to the bathroom, where I can hear her sobbing quietly, mopping her tears with tissue paper out of my sight. She doesn't want me to see, and I don't know what I can say, so I search the apartment for anything of interest. It doesn't take long, given the talents Coraline gave me combined with the tiny size of the place. The kitchen and main room are the same room, the boundary between them being marked out by a line of formica counter cabinets, which leaves the bathroom and two tiny bedrooms. I can smell which one isn't Jenny's, and so I take a look in the other one. There are a few dresses sprawled on the bed – rejected outfits for the party, and make-up left out on a shelf under a mirror. A bookcase groans under the weight of yet more books with titles that would make sense to Josef and Jessica, given their involvement with the acquisition and study of money respectively. The rug under the legs of the bedside table is worn, as if the table is moved regularly. Looking behind it, a medium-sized notebook is wedged against the wall. A diary – just what I need. I pocket it and make my way back to the kitchen table and my cup of cooling water, with time to spare before Jenny emerges from the bathroom, her composure regained.

"Sorry…" she says.

"Nothing to apologise for."

"It's just… I kind of expect her to walk through the door any second and switch the radio on. I'll ask her about her mystery man, she'll laugh at me and deny his existence, we'll find something to eat and everything will go back to normal…"

"Mystery man?"

A brief look of slight panic crosses her face at possibly betraying her friend to her latest interest, but the situation overrides her hesitation: "Oh God, it's just some guy I saw her with a couple of times, and I think he calls her now and then. I thought you might be him for a second when I saw it wasn't Jess, but he had fairer hair than you, I'm pretty sure."

"When did he see her? Why did he call?"

Jenny becomes defensive on behalf of her friend. "I'm not sure that's your business!"

"What if he had something to do with her going missing?" I hope she doesn't apply the unknown-potentially-dangerous-guy template I suggest to me as I say it.

The idea seems to terrify her. "Oh God, don't say that!" I can tell the same thought has been running through her mind. Then she starts talking, as if something has clicked. "Like I said, I only saw them together a few times, in between classes, but now, it seems strange. They never looked very friendly together – neither of them smiled. The first time I went up to them and said hi, but Jess looked so surprised and there were no real intros. I guessed maybe they shared a class and were on a project, but still… That's the explanation she gave me first time I mentioned it, but I saw them together a month later. And the times he called he would just ask for Jess and dodged anything I asked…"

"You saw him close to? Can you give a description?"

"I don't know, he was just normal looking – light brown, shortish hair, a bit older than you. Couldn't get his height – he was sitting down. He was wearing shades."

Under normal circumstances, that would be a pretty unhelpful description, but the last detail, in this case, sets alarms ringing. "When was the last time you know she talked to him?"

"I don't know, but she talked to someone on the phone on Tuesday night who I didn't know. Said she'd be somewhere… Oh God, she agreed to be somewhere on Wednesday night!"

She seems to have forgotten I'm here, she just stares wide-eyed into the horrific images her mind is throwing up. I hope they're not as bad as the reality, "I'm going to report her missing."

"Good idea." _You won't find her_. "I would if you didn't." I get up to go. "I'll check around to see if she made any of her classes in the last few days…" Jenny doesn't register what I say. As I shut the door behind me, I can't bring myself to tell her it's going to be ok.

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**Author's note**: Sorry to any regular readers (assuming I ever had any / haven't lost them!) for the massive delay in updating. Life got busy recently, and this chapter didn't want to be written. After learning of the shocking treatment of Moonlight by CBS and seeing the amazing finale, I was inspired to get this written, because the show is brilliant but we won't be getting any more for a while, until a sensible network picks it up!


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Moonlight. If I did, I'd treat it better than CBS.

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Back in the office, I get a chance to look at Jessica's diary, if you can call it that. The book was made as a diary – "1976" is embossed on gold lettering on the cheap, fake leather cover, and flimsy pages mark out the days, weeks and months inside – but Jessica seems to have used it as a journal, sketch book, scrapbook, notebook… On one page from last month is a recipe for a pasta bake, a rough, stick-man cartoon of someone asleep in a lecture hall, and an intricate drawing of the skyline from her room's window, along with appointments, meetings and classes she has written in ahead of time, occasional class notes and irregular diary-style accounts of her day. These range from short entries like "Bought tomatoes" to detailed descriptions the past twenty four hours. Everything, each doodle, scribble and note, is carefully kept inside its box marked out for the day, or, where it won't fit, inscribed with the date. I take longer reading it than I could – its like gazing straight into her head and I can't look away. Flicking through, I learn about her visits to the movies with "Jen", about futures trading in New York, her secretly-snarky critique of her friend's attempt at student theatre... Finally, I learn something about the bad ending to her life: a few possible identities of the mystery man Jenny saw her with. There's my alter-ego from yesterday, Paul, who gets more than a passing mention a few times, but he doesn't fit Jenny's description. Then there's Steve, who she seems to have been dating for a while – he's there in January and features heavily for two months, then the references start to thin out, before disappearing altogether in April. I guess his final appearance must be the sketch of a stick-girl smashing a guitar over a stick-boy's head (Steve played the guitar – not always the sign of a bad guy), but that's it. I wonder what he did to her to make his image deserve such treatment, and get a pang of mis-placed protectiveness towards her. I'm too late, and Steve isn't the guy she needed protecting from. That leaves Ed.

Ed is a frustratingly shadowy figure in the diary. He's first mentioned two months back. She met him in a bar. I know this because the entry reads, "Met Ed in bar downtown." That's it. I can only assume she met him here for the first time – it roughly matched what Jenny told me. He gets similar short references every week or so after that, where they met up or he called. His fourth appearance is noted with a soft pencil, and a few days later there is an anonymous time in the evening jotted down in the same pencil, with no mention of where or what happens at that time. From here on, all Ed's appearances have similar mysterious follow-ups, until his final call on Tuesday is scribbled down in blue ink, followed the next day with a note of "10:00" coinciding with the start of Josef's party. Next to it is a sketch of a pair of disembodied dark shades. Despite the scratchy pen she created it with along with the record of the call and the party "Ed" seemingly told her about, the drawing is obviously something she put time and effort into. The blank glare of the glasses' lenses frames a depiction not of the eyes behind them, but of the reflection of her own eyes. Maybe it's just me reading my knowledge of what happened into it, but it seems there is a spark of wariness, even fear, in the inked eyes. And that's all I have to go on.

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I'm not _that_ good at my job: anyone would struggle to find someone with no contact information, no real description, not even a full name. I've already questioned the only eye-witness to Ed's existence I can find. None of my other contacts turn up anything either. There's a case here, but if I can't find Ed, it's lost. So now I have to report to Josef, and see if he has any idea who might have told Jessica about the party. If not, I've failed. I meet Josef at his home in the evening. The last time I was here, Jessica was still warm.

Josef is waiting for me as I step into the room, near where I saw him last Wednesday night. This time, he's alone, and the house is silent. "A drink?" he offers. Unusually, no freshies walk into the room – instead, he takes a bottle of the red stuff from the refrigerator and pours two glasses. Is he after privacy, or does bringing a freshie in feel totally inappropriate to him too? I don't ask as he hands one of the glasses over. "So, you found out what happened?"

"I found out someone else was involved – someone else told her about the party and got her to turn up." I hand over the diary, and Josef reads all of it quickly and functionally. It takes him about thirty seconds, then he snaps it shut and looks up at me.

"Who's Ed?"

"You have no idea?" I give him the description Jenny gave me.

"I know an Edward in New York – he's seventy eight, retired and human. I knew an Eduard way back. He crossed the Channel to England in 1791 and hasn't moved a whole lot since… This guy I don't know." He hands back the diary, and my investigation hits a wall.

"Josef, if I can't find this guy, then I've done all I can do."

"'If'? Are you telling me you can't find this guy? That you're giving _up_?" he hisses.

"I'm not giving up, damn it, Josef! There's only so much I can do. She was keeping this guy secret from everyone. No humans I can find know anything more about him, and we can't identify him either. What more can I do?!"

Josef glares at me with silver-flashing eyes for a moment, then breaks his stare by smashing his glass against a wall, where it explodes into glittering, ruby-tinted shards. He brushes some of them out of his hand, which heals quickly. He flexes the reformed fingers a few times and again looks at me, the accusatory anger replaced with a small smile which doesn't reach his eyes but tacitly apologises for his outburst at me. "Just… don't close her file."

"Hey, of course I won't."

"I know. Thanks."

I nod at him and leave, putting the diary into a coat pocket. I'll store it away later in a file that will hang around, incomplete, reminding me of this failure. In my imagination, the expectant faces of Josef, Jenny and Jessica hover, seeking the resolution I can't provide.

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After putting Jessica's case file away, I sit back in my office chair and eye my other cases. They're all routine: a missing girl from out of town with anxious parents, someone wanting surveillance on a business partner, and two suspicious women wanting to know what their men are up to when they're not around. I'm halfway through the latter case – it's what I was working on before all of this – so I might as well finish it off before I start anything new. Picking up the surveillance photos I took last Wednesday, I'm reminded just how dull this one is. The guy is Walter Egmuns – the life-insurance salesman. He isn't cheating; nothing as interesting as that. I followed him around all day, and got a picture of him buying a hot dog, one of him bumping into someone accidentally on the street and another of him on the phone in his office, just doing his job. It's not even as if he's doing anything that I haven't managed to catch on camera yet – I made sure to run into him on the street too, and I could tell he hadn't been seeing others behind his wife's back. Technically, I should be doing another three days surveillance on him, but I can't face it. I'll just call Mrs Egmuns in and tell her what I've found. She should be grateful I haven't spun out the case to get another few days' worth of her money.

Mrs Egmuns is unimpressed. "I _know_ he's been talking to other women," she insists when I sit her down and tell her the result of my investigation. "You think after one day and these photos you've exhausted all possible leads?" She shoves my photos back across the table at me,

"Cassandra, I've worked a lot of these cases. I can tell if he's having an affair, and he isn't."

"How can you tell?"

_Give me strength. _"He just isn't acting like a man cheating on his wife." That sounded pathetic. Her withering look gives me the clear idea that she would agree.

"P.I. or not, I know my own husband. Something is up. I caught him talking to another woman on the phone once. He goes out at strange times and can't explain himself. He… I just know he's up to no good."

"Ok, if you feel it's necessary, I can do further surveillance. Any details of the times he goes out, plus any phone records or bills you have. Send them to me and I'll get right back on it." _Great, three days of trying to avoid the sun and listening to sales pitches for the premium "Elysian Fields" package._

"Thank you." She picks up the photo that best shows his face, the one of him talking into the office phone. "I'll catch you yet, Ed. Just you watch out." The "normal" face in the photo, that looks a little older than me, smiles unconcernedly back at her from beneath its light brown, shortish hair.

"Yeah… No problem. I'll get right back on it…"

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**Author's note**: This chapter concerned the investigation hitting a wall – hope it didn't result in something too boring to be worth reading! There will be a bit of action in the near future as Mick goes after his man. I have an idea for a new story that has spun off this one, but I promise to get this one finished first. Thanks, as always, to everyone who takes the time to read and review, especially to Moonlight Addict – your reviews are so thoughtful, helpful and encouraging.


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